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Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.

Stephen Sondheim

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Stephen Sondheim
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: March 22
Author
Composer
Dramaturge
Librettist
Lyricist
Musician
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
New York City
New York
Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Also
Particularly
Play
Complete
Wait
Audience
Collaborator
Waiting
Collaborators
Lasts
Musicals
Last
Collaboration
Comes
Plays

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.
Stephen Sondheim
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That's the trouble with awards for a body of work. They always come at both a good time and a wrong time. Good because they tell you what you've been doing was worth the doing and wrong because they ought to come when you're young and excited and hungry for assurance that what you're doing is worth the doing.
Stephen Sondheim
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Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.
Stephen Sondheim
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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
Stephen Sondheim
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A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.
Stephen Sondheim
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I don't like the word 'career'. When somebody says to me, 'oh, you've had such a wonderful career', I think, 'career - that's after you're dead.' I just don't think that way.
Stephen Sondheim
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You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
Stephen Sondheim
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Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey.
Stephen Sondheim
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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
Stephen Sondheim
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I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.
Stephen Sondheim
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With videotaping, on the second generation you're already losing some of the freshness.
Stephen Sondheim
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One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
Stephen Sondheim
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By the time I get through writing a score, I know the book better than the book writer does, because I've examined every word, and questioned the book writer on every word.
Stephen Sondheim
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You get used to the exact amount of space between lines. You write a word and then you write an alternate word over it. You want enough room so you can read it, so the lines can't be too close.
Stephen Sondheim
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When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
Stephen Sondheim
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I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
Stephen Sondheim
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You move just a finger, say the slightest word, something's bound to linger-be heard.
Stephen Sondheim
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Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
Stephen Sondheim
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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
Stephen Sondheim
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I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
Stephen Sondheim